Letters

LETTERS

The arrest of former Maryland basketball player Lonny Baxter this past week really makes me wonder.

Does the NBA really stand for Negative Behavior Acceptable? The commissioner truly has a daunting task at hand; players in this league seem to gravitate to trouble and consequent arrests.

The regularity with which these events unfold is unnerving and unsettling.

With so many vying for Michael Jordan's mantle as the current king of the court, it seems that this sport has a serious image problem that needs to be addressed before the league suffers irreparable damage.

Patrick R. Lynch

Baltimore

Naturalized citizens are Americans, too

In Lem Satterfield's report on the Hasim Rahman-Oleg Maskaev fight, he noted that Rahman's loss "leaves the United States without a heavyweight titlist."

Funny that. Maskaev lives in New York and has been a naturalized citizen for two years. From where I sit, as the son of a naturalized citizen, I thought that made my mother and Mr. Maskaev both Americans.

Mr. Maskaev's problem may be that he came into the country legally, and went through the proper, legal steps to get his citizenship instead of sneaking across the border.

What a commentary that Satterfield dismisses Maskaev's valid citizenship. Time to bring back high school civics classes and send The Sun's reporters to them.

Vince Clews

Reisterstown

Virtual medicine isn't for columnists

It's downright amazing to see that sports columnists Rick Maese and David Steele have the medical knowledge and expertise to determine that Floyd Landis cheated his way to winning the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

I don't know if Landis is guilty of exogenously increasing his level of testosterone, but I'm willing to wait until the court of public opinion adjourns and a legitimate investigation is conducted.

Of course, I don't have the omniscience and insightful wisdom that Maese and Steele demonstrated in recent stories. And their cynical attempt to be funny was - if I can use a term that they obviously seem to understand - synthetically produced.

They should stick to reporting the stats and the scores and leave the humor to the professionals.